February Newsletter

In this month’s newsletter, we are going to discuss:

• Monthly Garden Chores

• What to plant in ground

• What to plant indoors

• Chicken Keeping

• Ordering Baby Chicks

Monthly Garden Chores

In most parts of the country, gardening is the furthest thing from people’s minds. But in the lowcountry (Zone 9A), we can actually start thinking about gardening! This past week, we had 75-degree temps and sunny skies here in Charleston! We are talking BOAT weather!

So, this is the perfect time to start cleaning up the garden from the harsh winter conditions. Here is my personal garden chore checklist for February:

• Clean out dead plants.

• Weed

• Clean out and reorganize the greenhouse.

• Prune grapes, kiwi, muscadine, and hydrangeas.

• Mulch

• Repair fencing, raised beds, and trellises.

Getting these things done now gives you more time for planting next month! Your garden will be in great shape and ready to go!

What to Plant in Ground

Hopefully, you had time to plant cool weather crops last fall! If so, many of those crops are currently in their prime. Anything that you planted, like lettuce, greens, and cilantro should be doing great right now! And now is a great time to replant those crops for another spring harvest. In addition, you can go ahead and plant brassicas, radishes, and carrots. Here is a list of seeds that just went into the ground this week in my garden:

• Lettuce (all kinds)

• Collards

• Mustard Greens

• Cabbage

• Carrots

• Radishes

• Turnips

What to Plant Indoors

If you have a greenhouse or indoor grow lights, you can go ahead and start lots of different vegetables right now! You can start anything that you want to plant once the threat of frost has passed. For me personally, I like to go ahead and start tomatoes and peppers. Peppers especially seem to take a long time to get going. So, the sooner they can be started, the better! Below is a list of my favorite tomato and pepper varieties. These seem to do well in our sandy soils and will frequently volunteer for me the next year. Its also important to save the seeds of any first year or next year volunteer plants that do well in your garden. When you save those seeds and replant them, you are cultivating a high-performance plant that is made for your garden!

• Tomatoes:

  Florida Everglade

  Arkansas Traveler

  Any seeds saved from productive volunteer plants from the year before.

• Peppers:

  Jalapeno

  Banana Pepper

  Poblano

  Serano

  Shishito

  Scotch Bonnet

  Thai Pepper

  Tabasco

  Any seeds saved from productive volunteer plants from the year before.

Chicken Keeping

This is also a great time to deep clean your chicken coop and run. If anyone has tried to do a deep clean on their coop and run during the heat of summer, you’ll know not to make that mistake twice. These cooler temps and dryer weather make this process much more bearable. Here is a list of coop and run chores that I go through this time of year.

• Remove old shavings from coop.

• Rake out run to remove leaves, sticks, fallen branches, acorns, etc.

• Sprinkle First Saturday Lime in the coop and around the run, especially in the areas where the hens take their dust bath.

• Deep clean waterers and feeders.

• Replace oyster shell and grit dispensers.

• Add fresh shavings to the coop and nesting boxes.

• For some added fun, the hens love some nesting herbs sprinkled in the coop!

• Repair anything that needs maintenance.

Order Baby Chicks

This is also a great time to order baby chicks! You may like to purchase your baby chicks in person at Tractor Supply or from a local farm. If that’s the case, you’ll purchase your chicks later in the spring. But I like to order mine from Meyer Hatchery. When you place an order online, you’re going to pick a future ship date. So now is a good time to go ahead and select which breeds you want and get your order in for spring. For the lowcountry (Zone 9A), you’re going to want to pick a ship date between April 15 and June 15. This ensures it will be warm enough for the baby chicks to thrive with a heater and also be grown enough to be put in the coop before the weather gets cold again in the fall.

The chicken breeds that I currently have in my flock are Golden Buff Orphingtons, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, and Leghorn. They all lay different shades of brown eggs with the exception of the Leghorn.

This year, I wanted to add some green and blue eggs to the mix. I also miss my Bantam and Brahma hens! They both have the loveliest personalities. Bantams are super social, puppy like, happy little birds that will follow you around and talk to you constantly. They also make great mamas to baby chicks! And Brahmas are gentle giants. They are so kind and sweet! I can’t wait to get them both into my flock again! Below is a list of the chicken breeds that I’m adding to my flock this spring.

• Red Dorking Bantam

• Easter Egger Bantam

• Barnevelder

• Black Copper Maran

• Olive Egger

• Cream Legbar

• Dark Brahma

So, for those of us who live in the deep south of the lowcountry, we have plenty to keep us busy during February! This is why we live in these parts, right! It definitely isn’t for the August and September Hurricane season! So let’s enjoy this last month of winter and get our gardens prepped for an amazing spring garden season!!